Incidence of dry heaving surely spiked throughout New England this morning, in conjunction with ESPN’s report that, yes, there is a professional basketball team in the known universe voluntarily willing to do business with Stephon Marbury — and it is the defending champion Boston Celtics. Marbury still has to be bought out by the Knicks before signing, of course — a move that will perhaps be fast-tracked, it has been suggested, now that Cablevision won’t have to report the loss in 2008 — but a source in the Celtics organization says the signing “will happen.”

It’s an old axiom that the best way for a sports-franchise owner to make money is to do something besides own a sports franchise. Sports teams make money, but they’re often more of a billionaire's vanity project than a legitimate investment. Owners who have a team as their primary business, like the Buffalo Bills’ Wilson family, are the ones who have the most difficulty keeping their franchises afloat. You might know Mike Ilitch from his association with the Detroit Tigers, but his real money comes from pizza (Little Caesars, specifically).

That is to say: When financial trouble hits a team, it’s often because of troubles trickling down from another business. Today, The Wall Street Journal highlights upcoming woes for teams that owe to struggles in industries like transportation and publishing, not to mention Bernie Madoff. Because fewer people with money means fewer people desiring to buy teams, franchise values stand to drop. Meanwhile, franchises creating viable revenue streams — like the Cubs, for Tribune Co., and the Red Sox, for the New York Times Co. — have their owners looking to sell. It’s an odd reckoning.

Recently, Mayor Bloomberg — the same guy who wavered on a presidential run for about three years — told David Paterson to hurry up and make a decision about filling Hillary Clinton's Senate seat already. Then yesterday, Sheldon Silver, the most intractable personality in the world, indicated that he would support Caroline Kennedy's bid for the spot, supposedly because he thinks she'll get it anyway, but perhaps because he simply wants to speed things along. Paterson, meanwhile, is dismissing suggestions that if he can't make a real decision, maybe he should just appoint a caretaker senator to run out the clock on the seat (that is, until the 2010 special election). Someone like Bill Clinton, or Mario Cuomo, because we know only three families in this state of 20 million people are truly eligible.

Finally. Since the rumor that top Citi executives wouldn't take bonuses in light of their multi-billion-dollar government bailout was floated a full month ago, with no official word on the subject since, we assumed Andrew Cuomo was going to have to apply the electricity before Vikram Pandit et al gave up their right to siphon cash from a stone. But Wednesday evening, Pandit finally broke the news in a staffwide memo that he, chairman Win Bischoff, and Robert Rubin would forego annual bonuses, and that bonuses for other top executives would be "reduced substantially."

All the New Year's Eve high jinks and substance overuse and tawdry hookups must not have leaked yet, because there's very little nutritious gossip to be had this second day of 2009. Starting on a note of global relief, the Noel Family — yes, the ones who lost $7.5 billion in the Madoff thing, and who also send out rhymed, smiley epics about themselves every holiday — have finally rented their massive Mustique compound for $55,000 a week. (Full disclosure, we have pooled our '08 salaries and will be blogging live from there all next week.) America Ferrera went sightseeing and had lunch at Patsy's with her boyfriend and his parents.

We're going to get through this thing, people. It's a new year, this morning the markets are "perky," and, most auspiciously, the five-foot copper statue from Bernie Madoff's yard resurfaced on the lawn of Madoff's country club. It appeared to be unmolested, but a small note was attached:

"Bernie the Swindler, Lesson: Return stolen property to rightful owners.

Stolen Madoff statue returned with note attached [Reuters]
Earlier: Whoever Stole the Huge Statue Out of Bernie Madoff’s Backyard Is Awesome